YOUR PURCHASE OF THESE BOOKS SUPPORTS THE WEB SITES THAT BRING TO YOU THE HISTORY BEHIND OLD AIRFIELD REGISTERS

Your copy of the Davis-Monthan Airfield Register with all the pilots' signatures and helpful cross-references
to pilots and their aircraft is available at the link. Or use this FORM to order a copy signed by the author, while supplies last.

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TheCongress of Ghosts is an anniversary celebration for 2010. It is an historical biography, that celebrates the 5th year online of www.dmairfield.org and the 10th year of effort on the project dedicated to analyze and exhibit the history embodied in the Register of the Davis-Monthan Airfield, Tucson, AZ. This book includes over thirty people, aircraft and events that swirled through Tucson between 1925 and 1936. It includes across 277 pages previously unpublished photographs and texts, and facsimiles of personal letters, diaries and military orders. Order your copy at the link.

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Military Aircraft of the Davis Monthan Register, 1925-1936 is available at the link. This book describes and illustrates with black & white photographs the majority of military aircraft that landed at the Davis-Monthan Airfield between 1925 and 1936. The book includes biographies of some of the pilots who flew the aircraft to Tucson as well as extensive listings of all the pilots and airplanes. Use this FORM to order a copy signed by the author, while supplies last.

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Art Goebel's Own Story by Art Goebel (edited by G.W. Hyatt) is
written in language that expands for us his life as a Golden
Age aviation entrepreneur, who used his aviation exploits to build
a business around his passion. Available as a free download at the link.

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Winners' Viewpoints: The Great 1927 Trans-Pacific Dole Race is available at the link. What was it like to fly from Oakland to Honolulu in a single-engine plane during August 1927? Was the 25,000 dollar prize worth it? Did the resulting fame balance the risk? For the first time ever, this book presents the pilot and navigator's stories written by them within days of their record-setting adventure. Pilot Art Goebel and navigator William V. Davis, Jr. take us with them on the Woolaroc, their orange and blue Travel Air monoplane (NX869) as they enter the hazardous world of Golden Age trans-oceanic air racing.

NOTE: Because of the publishing lag, information
for the 1928 Air Races appears in the 1929 issue of the Aircraft
Year Book.

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"ON TO LOS ANGELES"

NATIONAL AIR RACES, 1928

This is an example of how the Davis-Monthan Airfield transient
Register provides wonderful snapshots of brief and exciting
periods during the Golden Age, and how, combined with other
sources (left), it is possible to bracket the Register entries
within the larger context that places the pilots and aircraft in Tucson.

Broadly, on pages 58-61, the Register lists 42
civilian planes, pilots and passengers who landed at the field for
fuel and comfort during the 1928 National Air Races (NAR). Thirty-seven
of them placed in the race. Tucson was an important waypoint,
because once they reached it, there was only a day or so of
flying left before the finish line in Los Angeles. A report from the finish line appeared in the New York Times of September 11, 1928, available at the link (PDF 114kb).

Cessna Aircraft in the National Air
Races, 1928

For the Cessna Aircraft Company specifically, the plan was
to enter eight aircraft in the race. Among the Cessnas that
landed at Tucson, Earl Rowland piloted NC7107 (image, right,
from Rodengen was taken later during the 1934 NAR) in Class A.

In the Class B category, Clyde
Cessna himself was flying
race number 97 (aircraft registration number not listed in
the Register). Fellow Register pilot George Curtis Quick flew with Cessna. Jay Sodowsky was in NC5336, and Ed Schultz flew NC5035. There were four others, none of which logged
in at the Airfield. The Cessna “team” planned
16 stopover points across the country; five were overnight.

On September 5, 1928, at 5:43:45 AM, seven of the eight Cessna
airplanes departed Roosevelt Field, Long Island and began
their race. One of them dropped out before takeoff (Francis "Chief" Bowhan); another
landed for technical reasons soon after. The remaining six
made their way westward toward Mines Field, Los Angeles.

A few days later, four of the six landed at the Davis-Monthan
Airfield. One of them, Earl Rowland, would finally be the
first-place winner of the Class A race. As his suit of clothes
might suggest, Mr. Rowland had a rough trip over Texas and
elsewhere. Hot weather raised cylinder head and oil temperatures.
His engine developed ignition problems upon takeoff from
Ft. Worth. At El Paso a tire went flat. These problems were
repaired and he departed El Paso at 5 AM. The photo, left,
from Rodengen, is of Earl Rowland with Cessna BW NC7107
after winning the NAR, September 10, 1928.
His winning time was 27:00:31.

Mr. Rowland landed at Tucson on September 9th (with Wm. Kowalski
as passenger). They arrived from Lordsburg, NM, a field about
halfway between El Paso and Tucson. He did not record the
time of his arrival, but it was probably in the morning. He
departed the same day for Yuma, the next control point for
the race. He won the race on September 10th when he landed
at Mines Field.

The other three pilots, Clyde Cessna (who didn't list a passenger,
but was probably carrying Curtis Quick, since Quick was the
officially-registered pilot for the race), Mr. Schultz (carrying
R.W. Yahner), and Mr. Sodowsky (carrying Miss L.M. Westhoff),
all arrived at Davis-Monthan on September 11th, all inbound
from El Paso. They departed on the same day, and Mr. Shultz
ultimately took fourth-place, and Mr. Sodowsky 8th place,
in Class B.

Below is Cessna NC5035 flown by Ed Schultz to win fourth-place
in Class B, 1928 National Air Races. “My Name is Red
Wings” is written under the cockpit window.

Curtis Quick, Clyde Cessna and their airplane came in last
(14th in the B race), yet Cessna's new cantilever wing design
performed well enough to earn the Cessna Aircraft Company
$10,910 in prize money overall.

The second-place winner of the Class A race, Robert Dake,
also stopped at Tucson enroute (with Ted Taney as passenger).
He landed on September 9th flying American Moth NX7556. The
third-place winner, William Emery, also landed on the 9th
flying Travel Air NX6269. Dake and Emery signed in at Davis-Monthan
one after the other. But Rowland logged in four lines below
them. They landed in that order, too, at the Yuma checkpoint.
It was a close race, in which Mr. Rowland obviously made up
time between Yuma and Los Angeles.

Twenty-first place went to pilot Daniel
A. Kundle. Please direct your browser to the page for competitor George W. Brill to review a series of news articles describing the race from their different perspectives across the country.

Below, from frequent contibutor Mike Gerow, is a photograph taken by his father of the flight line in Los Angeles sometime during the NAR.

In the foreground are two Bellancas. Identified by frequent site visitor Russ Plehinger as Veedol, a Bellanca J, NX-5315, S/N 106, Wright J-5 Whirlwind flown pilot Emil H. Burgin. Neither the airplane nor Burgin appear in the Register. The second one back with #185 on the fuselage is the Wright-Bellanca WB-2 known as Columbia, which made a trans-Atlantic flight from New York to Berlin two weeks after Lindbergh's flight to Paris. Note that the Veedol is not the same airplane as the Bellanca J-300 Miss Veedol, NR-796W, S/N 3004, Pratt & Whitney Wasp. Miss Veedol was flown across the Pacific by Register pilot Hugh Herndon and Clyde E. Pangborn. Please direct your browser to Herndon's link for details on their trans-Pacific flight.

An exhibition was scheduled with the 1928 NAR. It was held at a site near Mines FIeld. Below, also from Mike Gerow, the main entrance to the “Aeronautical Pageant of Progress,” held Sept 8-16, 1928. Celebrating 25 years of powered flight, this event coincided with the opening of Mines Field, later LAX, and the operation of the National Air Races.

Some military pilots of the Register also participated. Below is an article from the Bureau of Aeronautics Newsletter of October 17, 1928 documenting Navy pilots who competed in some of the race events. Note pilots Kane, Crommelin, Burroughs and Cooper.

Further along in the same Newsletter (pp. 10-12), the following article appeared in the section specifically geared toward the Eleventh Naval District, San Diego. The third paragraph of this article provides a nice summary of the military and civilian aircraft present at the event. Note mention of Register pilot Dudley Steele.

I post this great photograph vertically so that the annotations are readable. Their aircraft are arrayed behind them. Nowhere else on this Web site is there a photograph that captures so many Register pilots in one scene!

Below is a summary table of the 1928 NAR with links to relevant pilots and aircraft. A vintage movie of the 1928 NAR is at the link. Many of the aircraft and pilots tabulated below are recognizeable in the black & white film.

*Combination of information from Aircraft Year Book, 1929, and Davis-Monthan Airfield transient Register, and Rodengen. Pilots in ( ) are the only two not entered in the Register. All the others signed in.

The Cessna A (14th place in B race) carried Clyde Cessna as passenger.

I'm
looking for information and photographs of the 1928 NAR to include on this page.
If you have some you'd like to share, please click this FORM to
contact me.

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The Program for the 1928 National Air Races (PDF 16Mb) is at the link. This was the program sold to attendees for 25¢. It contained a listing of events, a map of the surrounding area, instructions for parking, advertising and articles. Note the two articles on pp. 27 and 29. This program is used with permission of the estate of Lieutenant, USNR (Ret.) and Pan American Airlines Captain Herman C. Hamel, (1908 - 1979).